The pontiff who became the ‘unworthy heir to Peter’

28 September 235. Pontian renounced the papacy; he had been elected at a time when the Christian community in Rome was divided due to the schism led by Hippolytus, regarded as the first ‘antipope’. In 235, with the end of the Severan era of tolerance following the assassination of Alexander Severus, the new emperor Maximinus Thrax resumed the persecutions. In Rome, both Pope Pontian and Hippolytus were arrested and sentenced to ‘ad metalla’, that is, to life-long hard labour in the mines of Sardinia. Before his deportation, to allow for the election of a successor, on 28 September 235 Pontian formally renounced the papacy: this was the first papal abdication historically documented with precision by the Liberian Catalogue. The two rivals died shortly afterwards due to the harsh conditions of their imprisonment, but not before they had reconciled: Hippolytus renounced his claims, asking his supporters to put an end to the schism and thus allowing for the unanimous election of Pope Anterus. A few years later, Pope Fabian obtained permission to bring their remains back to Rome: today, they are both venerated as saints.

29 September 440: Leo I, who would come to be known as the Great, was consecrated in Rome. Elected whilst he was in Gaul, he regarded the date of his consecration as his ‘birthday’. Reflecting on the characteristics and prerogatives of the Bishop of Rome, he developed a comprehensive theological and legal framework. He seized every opportunity to emphasise that the Pope was the ‘successor’ of the Apostle Peter. The word was not chosen at random and did not have a generic meaning, but rather the far more precise one derived from Roman law concerning, precisely, ‘succession’: the heir legitimately took the place of the deceased, assuming the same legal status. By applying the same principle to the Bishop of Rome, and carefully distinguishing between legal status (heritable by law) and personal status (obviously non-transferable), Leo coined the expression ‘unworthy heir of Peter’. The Pope did not inherit Peter’s merits or holiness, but his office—that is, the role which the Gospel describes as the task of guarding the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, and of binding and loosing. Rome was not merely the ‘Apostolic See’, but precisely the ‘See of Peter’; indeed, as Leo wrote to Bishop Anastasius of Thessalonica in 446, ‘the sole See of Peter which has charge of the universal Church’. And that charge could be fulfilled by exercising the fullness of power. Leo the Great acted in accordance with these principles with great vigour, asserting papal authority – doctrinal and disciplinary – before bishops, emperors and synods. Set against his theological and juridical framework, other important and well-known events of Leo’s papacy seem even less significant, such as his role in the diplomatic mission that halted Attila’s Huns in 452 or his dealings with Genseric’s Vandals, who sacked Rome in 455.